Facebook Likes, Google’s +1, retweets, Digg votes; when it comes to the social web, every social signal is a positive signal. It seems that we like everything — or almost everything, because when we don’t like something, we don’t say anything about it. Sometimes it feels as if we are living inside one giant Kumbayabubble, and that leads me to wonder: Should we trust the fidelity of these social signals to begin with?

As best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her recent book Bright-Sided, that positive thinking is “a water carrier for the business world, excusing its excesses and masking its follies.” I am a cynical optimist and that is why I often wonder, what are likes really good for? In a recent piece, Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Land, pointed out that Facebook Likes tend to boost traffic to various websites. He cites Facebook data as saying that by implementing Facebook Likes, denim maker Levi’s say they received a 40-times increase in traffic.

But did those likes increase Levi’s sales or their market share? No. The San Francisco-based denim maker is still sucking wind when it comes to growing denim sales, likes notwithstanding. Confounded, I started looking for answers, partly by reaching out to my virtual Twitter friends. And that led me to Scot Wingo, CEO of Channel Advisor, a web commerce services provider based in Research Park, North Carolina.

About Future Case

Future Case is an aggregation space about mobile life, business modeling, marketing and branding. The content is chosen from a number of sites that are serious on their matter. Authors can contribute. Please contact Kees.

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